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Not too different but worth a go

The original Grand Theft Auto was such a monster hit and courted so much controversy that it was only natural that a sequel was going to be rushed out. Much hype surrounded this sequel, which boasted far superior visuals to the original, and while it doesn't do enough to distinguish itself, it is still a great film that offers a lot of fun to fans of the original.

It's fair to say that GTA2 copies the successful formula of the first game for all its worth; there isn't much in terms of sheer invention here, but it is still a great sequel thanks to a few refined nuances, and of course, the slick visuals that are a huge improvement from GTA's rather tawdry graphics. Although the missions are basically the same, seeing the carnage through new, shiny graphics makes it worthwhile, as well as the addition of more radio stations and more impressively a far bigger array of cars.

The game has also toned the difficulty down after complaints arose that the original was simply too challenging due to the lack of saves. While saves still do not abound, you have a health bar so it is far easier to register when you need to find armour or a health supplement. At the same time, though, Rockstar have balanced this by introducing some more incendiary elements, such as an unseen ranking system, which causes enemy gangs to fire at you if they see you. However, again, in the interests of balance, the game has kitted you out with some more elaborate weaponry, such as an electro-bolt gun, explosives, and more rapid-fire guns.

There's no doubt that fans of the original will like this, even if it's a minor entry into the main canon.

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A decent if slighly disappointing sequel.

Released back in 1999, Grand Theft Auto 2 follows closely in the footsteps of its predecessor, with a top-down viewpoint, simple, arcade-style gameplay and controls and uncomplicated, cartoony graphics. As before, you must travel around the huge city maps gunning people down on foot and stealing cars, getting involved in long car-chases with the police and carrying out missions for local gangs in exchange for money. The graphics are a little more polished in the original, and the cityscapes more varied, with certain levels set at night this time around.

There are dozens of new vehicle models available, and there are now numerous different gangs for whom you can work, with the game introducing a new 'respect' system whereby different gangs become more friendly or hostile towards you depending upon the missions you choose to carry out and the way you behave in their territories. Should you act hostile towards one gang, they will open fire on you when you enter their area of influence, adding a little more depth to the levels. The police chase you in patrol cars as before, but now you also get pursued by SWAT teams, the FBI and finally the National Guard, depending on how much trouble you cause, which adds more variety and extra layers of difficulty to the game.

There are radio stations that you can switch between whilst out joyriding as before, but there is a lot of inane radio chit chat and fake adverts this time around, which is realistic but also gets annoying quite quickly, and had me longing for the non-stop music transmissions present in the first game. Despite all its little embellishments GTA2 somehow loses some of the magic present in the original game, and I found it more difficult to get into, with the original seeming like a more pure gaming experience with less distractions. Its still a great game in its own right however, but doesn't add much to the original GTA experience to be honest.

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really kicked off the GTA series for me

Grand Theft Auto 2 is one of an ever-growing number of games which attain long-term interest through a largely non-linear structure. The Gran Turismo series on the Playstation has showed how rewarding such a system can be by making the player the driving force behind the games' decisions. In GTA2, when you want to take a mission, you take one. If you want to cruise around for a while, hunt for some secrets, play at being a taxi driver or just create unruly mayhem, the decision is entirely yours. The player is in total control of what he or she wishes to do. And in GTA2 what he or she most often ends up doing is killing people, stealing cars and blowing up buildings. Where other, more graphically impressive titles, such as Kingpin or the Quake series court controversy by representing such violence in a highly realistic way, GTA2 avoids this by placing the action in a top-down, zoomed-out view, distancing the player from excess gore.

For those unfamiliar with the game itself GTA2 casts you as a mercenary thug, hiring your dubious services to a number of conflicting street gangs who offer you progressively tougher missions. Fail one and you often end up strapped for cash and headhunted by police cars, SWAT vans, special forces vehicales, and even the army. A highlight of GTA2 which is notably rare in many other games is the strength of its' sound effects and particularly the background music. Players of the original GTA will be familiar with the highly original use of different radio stations which can be 'tuned in' to, each with their own (Ccmic) DJ, adverts and music.

GTA2 improves on its' predecessor in every respect, but the awkward problem of implementing a save game system into so open a structure remains. GTA2 introduces the novel idea of making the player trade part of their score to save a game, ensuring that the difficulty of the game is not diluted by the players' ability to save every 10 seconds. GTA2 therefore provides a more lasting and rewarding challenge than its' predecessor, and comes highly recommended to anyone, whether they have played the original or not.

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A challenging, fun little game thats good for hours of intense gameplay.

In my opinion, the best game in the series. This side-scrolling crime-spree action game is thoroughly entertaining and intensely playable, good for hours and hours of quality gameplay. Despite the gangs being more-or-less interchangeable and the cars being a bit limited in number, the gameplay itself is fantastic.

Many people have ignored this gem, in favour of its sequels, in spite of the fact that the game has scarcely dated at all. Needless to say, the graphics are unrealistic, but so is the idea of blowing up 12 police cars before dispatching 3 swat teams with a flamethrower, only to steal a riot van and mow down 100 more pedestrians before being pursued by the armed forces.

The 'respect' system is a nice touch, as it means that gangs in certain territories will protect you by providing cover-fire when fighting off lawmen, whilst gangs in other territories will hurl molotov cocktails and fire off automatic weapons at your vehicle as you speed through the area with scant regard for civilian life.

Whilst the game is for ages 18+, the silly cartoony graphics scarcely encourage street-violence or carjacking due to their light-hearted nature. Even thought the game was controversial when it came out, it was not nearly as much of a concern to parents and general moral adjudicators as its sequels, GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas and the recent GTA 4.

It has some cool special effects, just small, well-done, non-ostentatious animations such as the effect of cars crashing into the ocean or being obliterated by grenades, and pedestrians being blown 300ft into the air by the errant missile of a rocket-launcher.

The cars vary from levels, as the player (the identity of whom is known little about) moves through different zones; the "Downtown" "Residential" and "Industrial" district. Although the specialist cars of gangs remain the same. For example, the Z-Cars of the Zaibatsu Gang, the Krishna buses and the Redneck trucks! There are 7 different gangs in the game, each with their own areas.

The game is light-hearted and doesn't take itself too seriously, in spite of the car-jacking, cop-killing subject matter. It is definitely worth playing.

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If you like gangster games, look into the GTA series.

The sequel of one of the best games ever to be produced.Grand theft auto 2 did not enjoy the sucess of its predecessor but was, nonethelessan exceptional game.In terms of graphics and gameplay, not much changed since the first version of this series. the graphics were only slightly superior and the game was a played at a little slower pace. In terms of new ideas, the guys at rockstar decided to create a more gangstyle game. In other words, in GTA2, there are several gans with which you can become more or less friends with by doing missions for them. Normally, becoming close to one gang means that the other gangs will hate you, hence you must chose well your strategy (I, for instance, at the beggining was practically neutral, which meant I could roam around the entire city. latter on, I becane friends with the green gang but I had a lot of difficulties to move around other gangs turf).Overall, the game is pretty good, although it was a bit of a dissapointment when compared to GTA1. Still, it is a highly recomendable game.

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Go for GTA if you want an old classic or GTA3 if you want to see where the game got good

I played this having played both GTA 3 and the very first GTA, the latter I was disappointed with. Knowing this was of a similar style to GTA and not GTA3 you may ask why I then chose to play this too having disliked GTA immensely. I was hoping to see the progression of the GTA series, how it got from GTA to GTA3 but it would seem GTA2 is pretty much the same as GTA.

Unfortunately GTA2 isn't even an improved version of GTA. Sure it's easier to recognise different gang members but the map is so large you'll get lost far too often. Now obviously it's nothing like the maps in GTA3 and the newer GTAs but in those you have a handy little map you can bring up at the press of a button or have splayed on your desk.

It's also far too difficult. I'm not normally one to complain about game difficulty as it's usually a nice challenge but considering how much time and effort it takes to obtain money in this game, to then have to spend a chunk of it on buying saves is ridiculous.

Overall if you have an urge to play a GTA classic go for the first GTA, if you have no urge to play old classics avoid and go for GTA3 or a newer GTA.

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Grand Theft Auto 2 is an excellent game and is a classic sequel to a classic game! After buying the first game I decided to find out what the sequel was like. I?m glad I did! This game is a mixture of driving and strategy. What you do is you are a beginner in crime and you choose what gang is most appealing to you. But if you want to be the most wanted criminal in the city then you have to gain respect from all three crime organizations. You get lots of different jobs such as being transport for a bank robbery, intercepting vehicles then blowing them away and blowing up a radio transmitter. The police are nearly always after you and the longer they?re after you the bigger they get. One force>Two Forces>Three>Four>Swat Team and finally onto the army. I?ve got as far as the Swat Team. You can stop all this by hiding and after a very long wait they?ll leave you. You can find a police bribe and they?ll get off your tail straight away. You could also get your car re-sprayed at the crime drive through. Other stuff you can get fitted to your car are bombs, guns on the front and oil that comes out the back to make the police go just slightly off course into a wall! The cars that you can steal are copies of cars around today but with a different name. For example: The Volkswagen Beetle is changed to the ?bug?. The only reason cars from Britain were in it was because the game was made in Dundee, Scotland. Which was great because it was released in Scotland before anywhere else! The weapons that are available are handguns, shotguns, machine guns, flame-throwers, rocket launchers, electro shock gun and electro fingers. You can find these in boxes on the pavement or on dead criminals. You can even steal a car and drive it to the crusher and they make the car into a box and you get a present at the other end like a weapon or something of use. Another means of transport is the train, which travels all through the city. This is a great way of staying away from the police. You can see the squad cars trying to follow you but they just give up in the end and you?re safe to cause more destruction and chaos! The graphics are excellent especially when you?ve got better than the recommended specification! The scenery and the cars are ok but the best part is the explosions, fire and flame-throwers! You feel as if you?re flying really over it because the view is a bird?s eye view. My overall opinion of this game is brilliant, excellent, superb, wonderful, spiffing and every other good word you can think of. Although I don?t play it as much now because of other games that I have, it?s still a great game!

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"It's not Realistic"

I had been trying to get my hands on GTA2 for ages. I had looked in all the shops and I had looked in catalogs for it. But to my dismay I just couldn't get my hand on a copy of it. However, aventualy one of my friends decided he had had enough of it and sold it to me for the very reasnoble price of £15. Then much to my horror I saw it for sale in a shop for just £10 on re-release. However, I am not here to complain about how I got ripped off. This game is one of the best, most addictive games I have played for a very long time. It has to be said it should be placed amoung the greats of PC games. You are a hired gangster working for differant gangs in dofferant parts of the city. These are: Downtown, with the Zaibatsu Gang, The Lonnies and the Yakuza gang, then, once a sufficient amount of points have been collected, we move to the wonders of Industial Town. Here there are again three gangs, these being: the Zaibatsu, the Krishna and the Russians. Again once a sufficient amount of points are collected we move on to the final area which is the wonderus Residential area. Yet again you will experiance three gangs, being: The Zaibatsu again, the Scientists and the Rednecks. Each gang in each area has certain charecteristics shall we say and each gang has its rivals. When you decide to work for a gang you must have enough "respect". To gain respect for a gang you must kill some members of the gang which are the enemies of the gang you are trying to work for. When you start each gang has a neutral stance towards you, ie they won't start killing you on sight! When you decide to work you have three levels of work, each reqiring diffeant levels of respect. There is Green, which requires the least amount of respect, Yellow/Orange, which requires half respect and Red which requires full respect. As you should expect for each level you go up the harder the missions become. This is basicly how the game is playes, however you don't just have t o stick to missions to get points, you can just go aroung killing people and gradualy get point, or you can get "kill frenzies." This is where you are given a certain weapon and you have to kill a certain number of peopleor destroy a certain number of vehicles in a set time. However I would recomend that to get the most amount of point you do a few missions, a few kill frezies, but most importantly HAVE FUN because then you will notice you points go up in the thousands. GTA 2 is a fantasic game but it does have its downfalls. It can get a bit boring after a while as it take so long to get anywhere. But when you do acheive something it's a great feeling. Also the graphics aren't the best but they are good and they are adequate for having a good time. So in conclusion if you're looking for a good game, that's cheap, because it's on re-release now, action packed and easy to play, this is the game for you.

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GTA2 Game: You are a gangster and you have to try and reach your target of money need each round. However the way in which you make your money is by doing illegal jobs for some street gangs. The gangs have weird and wacky names and there are normally a Cool gang and a barmy gang and a gang called Zabuista. Gameplay: The game is played in a top down view and you see your car and you a little of the surrounding area. You have a icon of the gun you have selected in the top hand corner and you have the amount of money and your life. Weapons: There are 9 weapons in this game ranging from Molotov Cocktails to an electric/toaster gun. There are alos the return of the Flame thrower. Advantages: Great Gameplay 3 Huge cities 6 levels of cops after you Disadvanatges Easy to Complete REALLY VIOLENT Conclusion: This game is great for spending hours and hours on. The only problem woth the game is the amount of violence…you can freely run over any Peditrian you wanted to, This game is not for kids!!

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GTA 2 is a seqial to GTA. The graphics are much better than the first one and there are more gadgets to play with. If you are new to the GTA series you steal cars and cause havoc amoung society. The guns now have the existance of a laser gun and other out of this world stuff. The cars aren't as good as the first one but that is soon taken away by the number of gangs that will shot you and other people stealing cars like you. The controls are the same. There are plenty different levels to keep you ocupied for ages and on every level there are tons of missions and you can chose your own path to fortunes. This game is great and I highly recommend it. In stores it costs £15.99 so go out and buy it.

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The original Grand Theft Auto was where you started off in a town had 4 weapons (pistol, machine gun, rocket launcher, and flame thrower!) and you start off with an arrow, go towards the arrow and accept your mission by answering the phone and doing the missions. Grand Theft Auto 2 is much better, bigger and has improved alot! The idea is that you start in town, similar to GTA 1 and you have 3 different colour arrows a yellow, a black and a blue, when you go near to one of these arrows say yellow for instance the other 2 arrows would dissapear and you would get a choice of missions for the yellow people, different colour missions means different difficulties. In GTA 2 you get loads more new guns such as pistol, dual pistols, machine gun, silent machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcer, flamethrower, grenades and molotov cocktails. each weapon is useful for different parts of levels throughout the game. You can now interact with people walking on the street, one guy dressed in red and white will run upto if he see's you and he will start stealing your money so if you punch him he runs away, you also see a guy dressed in green who always runs up to a car and steals it, he will pull you out of it if you are in his way! The cars in the game look much more futureristic aswell, by the detail in them. The graphics in this game have improved greatly, it is now fully supported by a 3DFX card which makes graphics and gameplay alot better and easier, there are 2 different daytime switching modes froom day time to night time. When playing at night time you notice that how much the lights on cars, street lamps and buildings really bring out the graphic quality of the game. There is also new multiplayer features, you can now play on the network and internet and have upto 8 players in one game! it is really good fun playing it with other people as it has different challenges. This game is a deffinate reccomendation!

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After the phenomenal success of Grand Theft Auto, the sequel was hyped out of all proportion....Quite rightly so however!!! It combined all the fun of the first game with great new features. For those who haven't played either game, the aim of the game is, as the name suggests, to commit Grand Thef Auto. You control a single guy who gets money by performing missions for gangs. Most involve you stealing a car or two, or commiting murder one, or countless other crimes. The more crimes you commit however, the more the police are out to get you. Once you reach a certain amount of money you advance to the next city (level). Don't worry if you can't manage it all in one go, there are save points around in churches ("Jesus saves" <--no i didn't find it that funny either) The game is played from a top-down view, with you having direct control of your character (unless he is in a car, then u control the car). You can steal pretty much any car (or bus, or even various army vehicles equipped with weapons) to get around the city as quickly as possible. Tons and tons of weapons are also featured in GTA2 (Pistol, Machinegun, Rocket Launcher, Flamethrower, Dual Pistols, and Grenades to name just a few) to aid you in your missions. You can also buy weapons for your car, including Machineguns, mines, and bombs. Use them wisely however, you don't want to end up as a big mess on the pavement! Each city, has three rival gangs controlling it. You can either work for one gang, or go "freelance" and do whatever missions you feel like. Remember however, "Respect is Everything". The more a gang respects you then the more missions you can perform, and the more help they give you. Be disrespected by a gang, and expect to get shot at if you set foot in their territory. Every mission has unique objectives, and each one you complete gives u a higher "multiplier" which makes everything worth more p oints (until you get arrested). The game features brilliant gameplay, great graphics, and an addictive multiplayer game with loads of different options (play first to kill each other, or first to certain score, or play tag around the city). All-in-all a great game, however the language and content is definately not suitable for young children.

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Everyone's favorite carjacking simulation is back to remind you why you should lock your doors in traffic. Grand Theft Auto 2 delivers in all the same areas as its predecessors, while fixing a couple of the annoying little problems and adding a touch of depth in the process. But Grand Theft Auto 2 is largely the same as the original top-down driving action game and its mission pack, London 1969. So while all the fun of going on a crime spree is intact, so are most of the previous games' flaws. There's a bit of story to go along with Grand Theft Auto 2, but it really makes no difference: As a budding young criminal, you are striving to make a name for yourself in a near-future world filled with drugs, guns, and turf wars. Each of the game's three levels is populated by three different gangs, each of which runs a section of the city. The gangs are roughly identical - only different colors and different gang vehicles separate them. Each gang has a set of pay phones, which you can answer to take on odd jobs, as in the first game. The catch is that a gang will only assign work to you if it respects you, so you have to earn that respect by driving over to a rival gang's turf and shooting up as many of their members as you can. Once you've smoked enough gangbangers (a set of meters lets you know where you stand with all three of the city's gangs), you can start taking jobs - just don't expect to be able to head back into rival gangland without having a few shots fired your way. Thankfully, you've got a health meter this time around, so you can withstand some damage before going down. The mission design is similar to the original game. You'll be making deliveries, picking up bank robbers, blowing up buildings with car bombs, and other unsavory tasks. Since each gang has a different set of missions, you'll have to eventually ally yourself with all of the gangs if you want to try all the missions. And since yo u need an enormous number of points to finish a level, you'll have to at least attempt most if not all of a level's missions to succeed. The difficulty of the missions can be a little frustrating, but the game isn't all about missions. There's plenty of fun to be had by just kickin' it freestyle out in the streets, stealing cars at random, shooting up crowds of innocent bystanders, and duking it out with the police. The cops are a bit smarter than they used to be, and they've got a larger arsenal, too. It's tougher to lose the pigs than it was before, and they'll do everything they can to cut you off on the road and get you off the streets. Even if you manage to kill a few cops and keep running, a SWAT van full of armored troops will be dispatched to handle the situation. Later levels have even more drastic types of armed response, ranging from feds to tanks. To combat the boys in blue, you'll have to find weapons, which are conveniently scattered throughout the city. Conventional weaponry includes a pistol, dual pistols (that inexplicably require different ammo than your standard pistol), a silenced machine gun, an unsilenced machine gun (again, different ammo for each), and a shotgun. You can also score heavier items, like grenades, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, Molotov cocktails, and a taser-type gun that lets you zap people from quite a distance. In addition, you can mount things like machine guns, mines, car bombs, and oil slicks on most of the game's vehicles, but since you actually have to pay for car upgrades, and cars get destroyed so easily, most of the upgrades aren't really cost-effective. The game's graphics have been overhauled, most notably in that Grand Theft Auto 2 uses a great deal of colored lighting, which makes the police cars look good. The camera isn't quite as jerky as it used to be either. Though most of the graphics are smooth, there are a few really obvious p roblems. The worst of these is when pedestrians fly up toward the screen after being hit with a heavy weapon. The little guys look absolutely horrible up close. Also, the near-future car design may disappoint people who preferred stealing the more contemporary cars of the original. The soundtrack follows the same format of other Grand Theft Auto games, and delivers a good mix of techno music and radio chatter. With the exception of the yapping noise that accompanies mission briefings, the sound effects are quite nice and also make fairly good use of 3D audio. The game lets up to six players compete on multiplayer-specific maps. You can play tag or play to a certain number of kills or points. You can also play with or without cops on the multiplayer maps. It would have been nice to see some innovation in the modes, like maybe a cops-and-robbers mode or even a capture-the-flag mode. Unfortunately, the network code apparently isn't very good anyway, because play is usually sluggish even over a LAN. Whether or not you'll enjoy Grand Theft Auto 2 depends on a couple factors. If you're easily offended by the concept of running around and committing wanton acts of destruction with a few simple button presses, this game isn't for you. If the first game's control scheme baffled you, there's no solace to be found here either. Though the game manages to be quite a bit of fun, it occasionally still feels like a glorified mission pack.

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Grand Theft Auto (GTA) was one of the best games to grace our PC's upon its release. It was controversial at its launch and came under heavy fire from critics. I might also be under heavy fire as the version I obtained was actually an illegal copy that I managed to aquire prior to the games release. I wasn't dissappointed I had made the effort. It was therefore without regret that I rushed out ot buy GTA2 upon its release and here's what I thought. THE STORYLINE: In the game you play a basic bad guy who steals cars and completes missions for gangs in the hope that if you perform well they will pay you and provide you with harder but more lucrative jobs. Unlike the first GTA where you merely answered a telephone to recieve a mission, in GTA2 you have to work for gangs. It's important to choose wisely as to which gang you work for because performing jobs for one gang will make you less favoured by another (and go too far and you will become a wanted man, luckily in this situation your gang will normally defend you if you make it back to base. All out gang warfare ensues - sounds good doesnt it. It is. There are other ways to get a gang to like you such as killing members of the gang they hate the most or by completing simple jobs for them (although if they despise you then you wont even be allowed these jobs). You have the choice to complete a whole range of missions, some easier than others which usually involve driving somewhere in a car and either dropping off some drugs or killing someone. There are a few variations such as armed vehicles which explode when you set them off (intended to destroy large building etc...) and these add a little more variety to the game. If you get bored doing the missions you can always try your luck at random violence. Its up to you how you go about this, maybe you can just walk down the street with your AK-47 casually pounding bullets into the heads of flee ing pedestrians or maybe you are more of a coward, preferring to run them over in a nice new ferrari. The choice is yours. You should be warned that the police will soon pick up on your acts and you will become a wanted man. Luckily killing a police officer is worth more than 5 times the amount you recieve for killing a pedestrian, so it can be worth it if you can survive. Basically there are no real rules in this game. The missions are a more controlled and perhaps faster andmore reliabvle way of obtaining your money, but archaic violence is just too good to resist to many people. So long as you hit the monetary target at the end, you can get the cash however you like. THE CARS: The cars in GTA2 differ only slightly from GTA in that they all do pretty much the same thing. There are a few additions and a few that were deleted, but it doesnt really make a huge difference to gameplay. What is good is the inclusion of a bus that when stopped at bus stops will actually pick up and drop off passengers before you again depart, I always wanted to be a bus driver :). You can steal any car you like, although be warned, in this game the drivers will pull you back out and punch you to the ground if you dont drive off fast enough - a great new feature that caught me out a few times when I first played it. THE DIFFICULTY: The game varies in difficulty depending on how you play it. I found the first two levels easy enough although I foudn the third a real challenge. It is split into cities (3 of them) and each one is progressively harder as well as providing new scenery and routes to learn. It's worth taking the time to drive aroudn the city casually as you will need to find those shortcuts for when you have the police sirens wailing in your rear view mirror. You can set the difficulty rating in the options menu although I always leave mine to default, not too easy and not too hard. My friend tried it on the easiest setting and found it ruined the game somewhat so I would recommend you avoid this and get more gameplay time out of it in the harder options. Once you have completed it it's always worth going back to the levels for that archaic fun though, I love revisiting a level just to see if I can kill every policeman on the map at any one time :) CONTROVERSY: Those who read my opinions regularly will know that I love controversy and this game ahs it in abundance. If its not gang warfare then its drug smuggling, cold blooded murder or a culling of the local police force. Indeed there is rarely a moment, even on cruise mode when you are not breaking some law or another. The fact you get rewarded the more laws you break is also an essential part of the game, and possibly the most controversial one. MULTIPLAYER: This game does actually offer some limited multi-player options, although they are just that, limited. There was so much potental for this games multiplayer modes bt unfortunately all you get is a basic he who kills the other person first wins and he who gets the most points without missions wins. Dissappointingly both these modes are rather dire and I found them incredibly boring. If they included missions and the ability to maybe join forces to gain points it might have helped. Shame, a wasted oportunity by the developers. THE GRAPHICS: The graphics are actually markedly improved on GTA, with dusk settings being particularly enhanced. The top-down view means that the graphics dont really need to be anything spectacular, and they're not. They are however pleasing to the eye aswell as being clear and easy to recognise. You will be able to recognise certain features a mile off once you get used ot it and then you really are going to start enjoying the game. PRICE: The game now retails at approx. £20 although I have seen it for £10.99 in an offer rack in GAME. You need to look aroun d but anything less than £30 is well worth the purchase, for £20 its a steal. OVERALL: This game is superb. The single player mode is fantastic and will have you hooked for days, even when you complete it you are sure to return to cause chaos and indulge in some random violence. The multi-player was dissappointing but doesnt detract from what is a superb game. Possibly the best gameplay around. *warning, this game has an 18 certificate for a reason, so all you 15 year olds know which title to go and buy - duh!*

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The original Grand Theft Auto had massive success and was one of the most popular games of its type ever to be released, when this game came along however it only enjoyed minor success with many people finding the similar elements too boring. The main highlight of the original game was its originality, there were no other games that really let you have the freedom of movement throughout a city mixed with the crime theme. Now though the theme has been copied with a few other games as well as being seen in the original and when this game came along it was nothing original at all therefore interest in it was lower. Mix this in with the fact that it really is just a slightly improved version of the original and only big fans of the original or people who haven't played the original game at all really have an interest in it. I myself was a big fan of the original however I still wasn't tempted to pay the full price for it, when I finally did buy it (for £20) I wasn't disappointed. While the game is not really that different to the original, it does make some changes that (to me at least) made it more fun to play. --Freedom-- The game offers freedom over what you do, while there is a target to reach you can do this any way you want. If you don't want to do any missions then there is nothing to make you do them and instead just drive around the city in cars and do what you want, however you are unlikely to reach your target this way. The fact that you "can" do what you want really does make you feel far more free in the game, personally I involve a mix of doing missions to increase the bonus multiplier and then simply driving around the city creating as much carnage as possible. --Cities-- In the original game you had 3 cities to explore, each of these with 2 seperate sets of missions. GTA2 changes this and puts you in a single city, however this city is much larger and has to be split into 3 parts (giving you the same number of stages). As you progress through each of the stages the next one gets tougher with the police getting better, missions getting tougher and targets getting higher. Personally I found that any of the stages provides a suitable difficulty with later ones just being harder to complete. The 3 areas are: downtown, industrial & residential, the names do reflect the type of buildings you will see there, however other than the appearence and layout of the levels there aren't huge differences between them. --Respect-- This game is all about respect (apparently anyway). Basically there are 3 gangs in each area of the city, in order to attempt missions for one of these gangs you need to have their respect however this will likely anger another of the gangs. Usually what happens is that angering gang a will please gang b, angering gang b will please gang c and angering gang c will please gang a, this basically means that at any time (except at the very beginning) you will have 1 or 2 gangs who like you and 1 or 2 gangs who will attack you on sight. Having high respect for a gang means that you can freely walk through their area of the map and attempt the tougher missions, having low respect means that you will be shot on sight and having extremely low respect will mean specialists from the gang will try and kill you as quickly as possible when seen. --Weapons-- While there are certainly more weapons than in the original GTA I would say that most of the additions don't really add anything to the game, the original worked because of it's simplicity and the extra range of weapons to me just took something away from the game. Many of the weapons are easy enough to use (shotgun, machine gun, pistol) wheras some of the others can take a bit of getting used to (molokov cocktails for example), due to this the most common weapon you will use is one that can shoot as much as possible against polic e/civilians/gangs and one that does high damage against vehicles. In addition to personal weapons, cars can now get 2 weapons. These are a gun or oil, the gun allows you to shoot in front of you and easily destroy vehicles and kill people, the oil is meant to make vehicles behind you slip. The gun is often limited in availability so that you won't constantly use them on every vehicle you can get and the oil seems very underpowered (or maybe I just can't use it right). --Vehicles-- In a way these are improved, in a way they are downgraded. The game is set in the (near) future, as such most of the cars aren't really recognisable as cars that exist today (because with it being in the future the cars "don't" exist today). One of the fun parts of the original GTA was that you could identify what each car was meant to be, despite its different name, taking this away from the game doesn't really seem a good thing. How vehicles are improved is that there are a few good new types of vehicle that are fun to use, as well as this how you control the vehicle seems better and vehicles that are supposed to be slow and hard to use really do seem this way. --Police-- Much improved over the original, in my opinion it was far too easy to get away from the police in GTA. Similarly to the original you have different levels of how wanted you are, this starts with just getting more police sent after you however after you really start to get dangerous you will get a SWAT team, FBI and finally the army after you. Rather than confront you with the most difficult police immedietely the highest level of "wanted status" is detemined by the part of the city you are, stage 1 will only allow you to get normal police and a SWAT team, stage 2 will add the FBI and stage 3 will add the army. This prevents you from being overwhelmed from the start and helps to slowly increase the difficulty as you progres s through the game. As well as just having more than 1 type of police the game also makes existing police more intelligent, they will try to ram you off roads, follow you in places they normally wouldn't and have 2 police per car (rather than the quite unbelievable 1 in the original). Overall when the police are after you, you really have to be much more careful than you had to be in GTA. --Bonus Levels-- By finishing certain parts of the game you can gain a bonus stage, these tend to be fun modes of play that have very simple goals but ones that can be improved on with practice. An example of this is the first bonus game you get, in this you have guns for your cars and have to destroy as many ice cream vans as you can, as you progress you get more police after you and more wrecked carnage on the road and as your time limit ticks down you become more and more frantic to destroy the next van to get a time extension. Overall these bonus games are nice additions to the game. --Difficulty-- One of the most fun parts of the game is that you can set your own difficulty, if you want to work slowly through the missions being careful not to anger the police you can do, on the other hand you may want to rush through the missions while being chased by hoards of police. Both of these options are available meaning that anyone who wants a good challenge can get it while people who prefer to take a game slowly and carefully can also do this. The difficulty overall though (if you take an average route) is a bit above average, some of the missions that you attempt can be extremely tough and there is often no way of telling how difficult a mission will be until you have tried it once. The missions themselves are split into 3 difficulties, the more difficult the mission the higher the reward, the more likely to anger other gangs and the higher the respect you require with the gang you are attempting the mission for. Person ally I tend to do as many easy missions as possible to increase my bonus multiplyier a bit then go onto the tougher missions to amplify the rewards even more. --Adult Content-- This game is definetely themed towards adults, I personally wouldn't have found this game offensive when I was younger however I'm sure many parents wouldn't like their children playing this game. This content comes mainly in the form of strong language (from people talking to you in missions and voices of civilians/radio) and the strong theme of violence and crime in the game, you will be told to do anything from kidnap to torture to dealing drugs to murder in this game so anyone easily offended should stay away. --Control-- Control of vehicles is improved over the original, vehicles handle much more like they should do. A vehicle is not always easy to control, however this is usually because it is meant to be difficult rather than being a problem with the game itself, cars that are meant to be easy to control really do handle very well and you get the feeling that much study has been done into how to make the cars easy to control. Controlling your character is identical to the original, I have no complaints but it's nothing than any other game made couldn't really do. --Music/Sound-- Music is certainly implemented well with the idea of giving you various radio stations, you can change these stations any time you are in a car and the range means that if you hate the music that is currently on you can soon change it, unfortunatly many of these stations in a particular part of the city will be of a similar theme and if you don't like one you may not like any of them. The music itself is of generally a high quality, but it really does depend on you liking that genre of music and if you don't you may find yourself switching it off. Sounds are quite well done too, with strange adverts on the radio, realistic c ar sounds (if perhaps slightly exagerrated at times) and various other sounds that really add to the game (such as civilians insulting you when you nearly run them over) the sound is really done well. --Price-- This game is now on budget and can be bought for £9.99 (probably cheaper at various places). The cheapest I have personally seen is at MVC for £8.99. This game can also be downloaded for free from freeloader.com, this version isn't identical to the original but the only things missing are the things that would take hours to download (such as some of the movie files). This version is easily worth the download and if you have this there is no point at all in purchasing the game.